Charybdis did not answer her companion’s question straight away, choosing instead to dwell on those softly spoken words, pondering the seeking mind who’d threaded them together, and in a quiet moment of clarity, allowing appreciation to wash over her. The mare was acutely aware of her own turbulence, and was not oblivious to the fact that the shadow beside her had not balked at the subsiding storm of chaos and emotion that she was. The very depths of her heart were as unknown and unfathomable as the sea, and yet Charybdis already knew; no matter how brief Faolain’s presence in her life, there would be no forgetting the kindness she’d shown a stranger in a time of great need.
“I cannot be certain,” she murmured hoarsely, her emotions swelling within her even as the tailwinds of the storm dashed whitecaps on the rolling waves. “De 'alf of me saw ‘im in a dream. Said ‘im was a mighty island once.” And suddenly, she felt so far away, upon another shore, with another standing with her shoulder to shoulder. The heart of this one had been so strong and fierce. There had been a sort of gravity to her, a current, that Charybdis had surrendered to without hesitation the very day they’d met. The words she spoke now were soft, sort of reverent. “Ancient and strong, great caverns and canyons of stone, dat caught every sound and sang back to dose who walked ‘im winding chasms.”
A sudden salt-spray gust rushed about her face, sending her damply-curled forelock flying. The half-blind morgan mare blinked and stiffened a moment, disoriented a moment as she struggled to settle back in the present, the here-and-now, where she leaned upon a different soul than the dreamer about whom she dreamed. But this one, this quietly inquisitive, serene to Charybdis in her steadiness – she was strong too. In what manner, exactly, the white and bay mare was yet to witness, but she did not doubt. Fate was something the mare with the ocean-soul believed in, though many had scorned her for this in the past, thought her mad for this and all her other eccentricities.
Charybdis blinked back tears that had pooled in her eyes. “ ‘Im rests at de bottom of de sea now, kept company by all de souls who stayed wit’ ‘im at de end. In de storm, I saw de bones of Cimarron breaking t'rough de waves, and dey be guide for me, led me true,” the mare explained, and then a watery smile broke across her lips. “Led me to you.” A stillness had settled upon her, but Charybdis was quick to shake it off, tearing her gaze away from the dark face of her companion, and the concern she’d glimpsed in Faolain’s eyes. The empathy.
For many, the eyes of others served as mirrors, reflecting back at an individual that which they most loved about themselves, or most loathed. Truth-tellers. But for Charybdis, it was no surprise, they were like pools of water, some shallow, others deep enough to drown in. Trouble was, she never could resist water. She’d been told it would be her undoing, one day, and the mare knew this to be true in her heart. And it almost had been. But she was here, now, she was a survivor driven by a promise, determined to honour that which had been given. “Was a bargain was made, and it come at great cost. But I am alive, and 'er rest wit’ Cimarron now, a flicker caught for always between ‘im crest of stones in de sea.”
The wind howled a dirge along the shoreline. It sounded to Charybdis like a resonance the gale of the storm, as it’d tossed her about in the foaming waves. Fate. A touch of destiny.
The earlier remark made by the Teke comes back to her, and the certainty of it is strengthened by Faolain’s second mention of it, as she offers something that means more to Charybdis than could be formed with words. A gift without compare – a place of safety that would not cut her off from the sea, and from which she could pay tribute to one that she’d loved. For a moment, the odd-eyed mare struggled internally, almost choking on the emotion that had lodged in her throat (and by the aching of her chest – in her heart). She blinked, misty-eyed, and dipped her head, misty-eyed and trembling not from the cold. “I would like it dere, and it would mean so much, t'ank you,” she managed after a moment. “T'ank you truly.”
She is left feeling hollow, all energy sapped from her from the storms within and without, but there is hope in her, offered from Faolain’s lips. Grateful for the nearness of Faolain, for the support she provided and the way she banished bleak loneliness and despair with her presence here alone, Charybdis followed her direction, her mind turning from the past just as her body turned from the sullen ocean. But then a figure appeared, called Faolain’s name. Tired as she was, Charybdis did not want to be a burden, nor impose upon whatever business the dark sentinel had with the spotted stallion, and so she shifted her weight, finding some meagre reserves of strength so that she could stand on her own. “ ‘Ello,” came the returned greeting, and though her mind did not drift as it had earlier (to another time, another place), Charybdis turned her head slightly, permitting her focus to coast over the sand, so as to be unobtrusive as possible, even though she’d made no move to carve distance between herself and Faolain.
If she were in a healthier mental state, and not so dreadfully fatigued, she might have perhaps made an effort to engage in conversation, but the storm had taken much from her, and it would be a considerable time before she recovered. Perhaps one day, if she could bear to tear herself from Faolain’s side (from the safety and security she felt standing in the shadow of a shadow) and descend from the heights of her Ridge, she’d seek this male, with his accent the like of which Charybdis had never before heard. And if she found him, if she got the chance, she might ask him then, what it was that had weighed him down so, when he’d approached a lone pair in the wake of a storm.
Because to Charybdis, there seemed a weight to his words, and she prayed that he’d not enter the sea while it was still hungry, lest the burden of them drag him beneath the waves.
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